Sir, – Regardless of the provision of care (a leap I am not eager to make), even hypothetically assuming an ethically perfect organisation to which we could hand over a national asset, why is the State so anxious to effectively give away ownership of a taxpayer-funded entity and infrastructure into a third party’s hands?
This from the supposedly financial prudent parties in power. – Yours, etc,
COLM DOYLE,
Dublin 7.
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Sir, – Brendan Butler (Letters, May 5th) suggests that those women who have expressed concerns about the ownership of land on which the new National Maternity Hospital is to be built represent the women of Ireland.
Sorry: not me.
The legion of young voters who supported marriage equality and abortion rights and all the processes already undertaken at Holles Street will be well able to defend those against anyone. Just build the hospital. They need it, and they’ll look after it. – Yours, etc,
SHEILA BARRETT,
Dalkey,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – The idea that the Government is prepared to spend upwards of €1 billion on building a hospital on a leasehold site, irrespective of the terms of the lease, makes absolutely no legal or commercial sense. Notwithstanding the many valid points raised about the independent medical integrity of the new hospital, the very idea that the State would commit such funds to a leasehold and not a freehold site is beyond comprehension.
Unless the proposed site is transferred with a freehold title, the Government should simply walk away and look elsewhere. – Yours, etc,
CHARLES SMYTH,
Kells,
Co Meath.
Sir, – As we are told that medical practice at the National Maternity Hospital will be in accordance with the law of the land, rather than Catholic Church medical ethics, and that there will be a 299-year lease to the NMH, why did the Religious Sisters of Charity (RSC) insist on their creation, the Saint Vincent’s Hospital Group (SVHG), owning the site, rather than the NMH? An agreement stating that the site could only be used by the NMH to provide facilities to the NMH or the main hospital would not be all that difficult to negotiate. – Yours, etc,
ANTHONY O’LEARY,
Portmarnock,
Co Dublin.
Sir, – The Vatican may have given permission for the Religious Sisters of Charity to transfer their shareholding into their new private company which will operate the National Maternity Hospital but what is being avoided by all concerned is that the Sisters will also require Vatican permission for the provision of any reproductive healthcare that is forbidden by the church to take place either on their land, or by their company.
The Sisters have been keeping their ethical and philosophical code under a shroud of secrecy. However, we can look to a comparable model from the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services (Sixth Edition). Within this we see Directive 70 which states, “Catholic healthcare organisations are not permitted to engage in immediate material cooperation in actions that are intrinsically immoral, such as abortion, euthanasia, assisted suicide and direct sterilisation”.
Any business dealings will also be affected by other directives, such as No 71, which states, “When considering opportunities for collaborative arrangements that entail material cooperation in wrongdoing, Catholic institutional leaders must assess whether scandal might be given”.
We also know that canon laws forbid such activities, such as Canon 2,272, which states that “formal cooperation in an abortion constitutes a grave offence”. Canon law does not have to be directly written into the NMH constitution for it to be enforced. Does the additional Vatican permission required for abortion, IVF, contraception and sterilisation to take place on the site at Elm Park, and, by their own private company, even exist? Have any of the lawyers, Ministers or HSE asked for or seen this additional permission?
DEIRDRE FITZGERALD.
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.